


Love v. Illness

by heartswells



Series: In Sickness and In Health [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Anorexia, Crying, Dissociation, Eating Disorder Recovery, Eating Disorders, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Mental Illness, Recovering characters, Recovery, Support
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-24 13:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21100130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartswells/pseuds/heartswells
Summary: [trigger warning for restrictive behaviors. (behaviors are overcome)]“You know how you make this easy again? You eat, Sam. You do it again and again until it doesn’t hurt any more.”“I know that,” Sam spit. He clenched his fists, boiling with displaced rage. He wanted to blame anything but his disorder for causing him pain, and Erik had placed himself at the center of it.





	Love v. Illness

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning: restrictive behaviors.
> 
> notes on EJ: there's some action-perception contradiction in here which stems from my idea that EJ probably wouldn't consider himself the most emotionally adept, even if his actions proclaimed otherwise.

11:00 p.m. glowered at Sam from the oven’s digital clock in harsh red lettering; the juxtaposition of the numbers looked hideous, like two bloody gashes beside two watchful eyes. It was the torturous final hour before midnight rebirthed the world when all the day’s mistakes came bounding forward and begged to be reconciled. Now, pleading for Sam’s attention was the dinner that he had skipped. Earlier, in a fit of frustration and anxiety, he had shunned it, but as the day threatened to close, it nagged him, and he regretted it, _ recovery can not exist in partials _ echoing in his head. Possessed by this sudden burst of motivation, he had anchored himself to a chair and summoned the resolution necessary to prepare a bowl of cereal. But anorexia thrived in the grim solitude of night, and ten minutes later, his resolve had revealed itself to be nothing more than a brief manic outburst. He could not will himself to lift his spoon. 

  


Midnight tiptoed past him, and he sat absently staring at his food, dissociated from the world around him. His shredded wheat biscuits absorbed all the milk in his bowl and decomposed into a revolting mess like a hideous metaphor for his health. On the package, the mouths of the Mini Wheats mascots were poised in gaping smiles as if they laughed at him, mocking the folly of his bout of confidence and hope. They were inanimate, but he felt as if they shamed him, and he craved to have as much power over himself as he felt that they wielded. The seconds of time continued racing onward, but he remained immobilized by his internal argument. The voices in his head sapped his body of its energy, shrieking _ eat _ and _ you are unworthy _ with such intensity that he could do nothing but sit and listen. 

  


At one a.m., Erik stumbled down the stairs, worried after having woken to find the bed void of Sam. He paused in the kitchen doorway and studied Sam’s posture. He looked despondent, and Erik shook himself awake; this was not the first time he had found Sam like this, and he knew that he needed help. Idly, he regretted not donning socks as he padded across the cold tile floor of the kitchen to fill a pot with water. The gas burner flared to life as he set it to boil before digging out three packets of ramen from the pantry. 

  


“What are you doing?” Sam asked, drawn from his reverie by Erik’s rummaging, which sounded thunderous in the previously silent night. 

  


“Making us ramen,” Erik replied nonchalantly, fortifying himself for Sam’s reaction.

  


“Why?” Sam barked, sharp and defensive. Erik stopped himself from snorting at it’s terrible predictability. 

  


“Because we’re both hungry.” Erik had found that it was often best not to entertain the convoluted word games that eating disorders tried to play and to answer with such childish simplicity that arguments could not be sustained. 

  


“I don’t want it,” Sam snapped. It was a lie so obvious that it was near despicable. Ramen, warm, salty, and so wonderfully filling, sounded perfect, and he wanted it so badly that it sickened him. The emotional dissonance overwhelmed him, and he jumped up to storm off and escape. Erik raised an eyebrow and dared him to move.

  


Sam clenched his fists, boiling with displaced rage. He wanted to break every dish in the cabinets and snap all the silverware in half. He wanted to carve obscenities into the marble countertops and shatter the glass of the oven door. He wanted to throw all the food in the pantry and fridge onto the floor and destroy it, act out his perverted revenge by feeding it to roaches, soaking it in his blood, and letting it rot. He was livid, burning with all the abhorrent cruelty that fear could breed. He wanted to blame anything but his disorder for causing him pain, and Erik had placed himself at the center of it. 

  


Erik pulled a jug of apple juice from the fridge and filled two glasses. Sam’s meal plan often confused him, but he understood enough to know that just ramen wasn’t going to cut it and decided that fruit juice would add an adequate dose of vitamins. He eyed Sam over the edge of his glass as he drank, waiting until Sam relented and took a sip. His face contorted through too many emotions for Erik to individually identify. Erik turned to drop the blocks of instant ramen into the water and pried them apart with a fork, allowing Sam a moment of peace to process his feelings. Three minutes later, he divided the soup into two bowls and placed one in front of Sam before sitting across from him. Sam didn’t move, and Erik sighed.

  


“You know how you make this easy again? You eat, Sam. You do it again and again until it doesn’t hurt any more.”

  


“I know that,” Sam spit. More than he knew it, he’d _ experienced _ it, but he was sick of going through the pain over and over again only to end up back where he began. Just when he thought he was getting better, everything all came rushing back, and he was done with enduring the cycle of agony. 

  


“I know you do, Sammy, but you’re not acting on it.” Erik remained calm. Though it was tempting to become emotional and retaliate with equally passionate anger, Sam’s disorder was not a person, and it could not be reasoned with or defeated through intimidation. He could not hurt it; it was not sentient. He could only hurt its vessel, and its vessel was Sam who he was trying to protect. 

  


“Well, I don’t want to,” Sam said with all the petulance of a toddler, all the insecurity of a teenager, and all the lack of wisdom of his twenties.

  


“What’s the other option, Sam? You relapse? You give up? You allow fear to keep you miserable, and then you _ hope _ you die? And you might think that, that’s what’s going to happen—that you’ll just die and it will all go away—but it won’t. You’ll have a long path of misery first. And all of it is avoidable.” Erik’s words were an ungentle reality, and Sam flinched in the face of their truth.

  


Erik was the only person Sam had ever met with a fortitude to match his disorder. He was not sure where Erik’s experience was borne of or how he knew what he did, but Erik fought and pushed him to do the same. Love v. Illness: the loyalty and passion of partnership versus the genetics and trauma of anorexia. When illness said _ I will kill him_, love forced them both to reply _ I refuse you that privilege. _

  


“I know that it sucks, Sam. I’m not trying to tell you otherwise. But the only way out is to eat, and I know that you do want out.” Erik attempted to soften his voice. He knew that Sam already knew this, and he knew that Sam was trying, but he also knew that trying was not enough in the face of life or death. Erik had faith in Sam’s ability to _ do _ rather than _ try_. He just needed more support, and Erik was willing to be it. He would not shove him into the dark abyss of reality alone; he would dive in headfirst beside him, for better or for worse.

  


“I don’t want to be this person anymore, Erik. I hate him so much,” Sam whispered. He shook violently, the dissonant chaos of the heart revolting against the brain wracking his body.

  


“Sam, this isn’t your fault. This isn’t who you are. It’s a disorder,” Erik soothed. This was difficult terrain to tread, and it made him nervous. The line between invalidation and confirmation was often too thin.

  


“That’s not good enough! That’s not a good enough reason! None of it’s good enough.” Sam sounded like he was trying to scream, but his exhausted body could not muster the necessary power, and so he began to cry as he said it instead.

  


Erik did not consider himself phenomenal at handling crying. He would rather Sam had lashed out and punched him instead. However, he had recently asked Gabe and Tyson for advice on the art of soothing tears, so he moved to the other side of the table, tipped Sam into his chest, and pretended to be a human blanket, just as they had said. 

  


“I just don’t want to be this person,” Sam repeated over and over, pleading and praying. “I want to change. I want to be different. But no matter what I do, it doesn’t work. It always comes back. Ten years later and I’m still crying about the same shit and fighting myself about the same things like time hasn’t even gone by, and I’m still that stupid sixteen year old. Am I not capable of changing? I go through the same pain again and again for nothing, for it to get better for a month, and then all return again tenfold. I’m weak, and I hate this person.”

  


Erik wanted to pick apart his words and dispute them syllable by syllable. Sam’s perception of his person was not invalid, but it was skewered by insecurity and pain. Erik saw infinite worth in him. He had made progress, and he had changed. Even wanting to change was a form of change in itself. A weak man would not still be at the table. A weak man would not cry and confess his feelings. Erik could dispute him endlessly, but, ultimately, it was besides the point. The point was for Sam to feel safe enough to express what he was feeling. It was not for Erik to tell him that he was wrong and make him feel as if his voice was not worth using. Sometimes there is comfort, and sometimes there is invalidation. Erik did not always walk that line well; he preferred action to word.

  


Sam cried, and he rambled, burying his face in the crook of Erik’s neck in the same place he loved to kiss. It was a quiet form of crying, almost secretive, laden with shame though he wasn’t really to blame for anything. Sam wrung Erik’s nightshirt between his fingers in distress and scratched the skin of Erik’s chest raw in the process, and Erik simply accepted it. To be allowed to witness this moment was a privilege he was unwilling to disrupt with his own discomfort. He hummed sweet shushes that whistled awkwardly through the gap in his teeth and rubbed Sam’s back, dreaming of a world where he could take on all of Sam’s pain and free him, a world where he could do more than just watch.

  


“It just doesn’t go away,” Sam summarized after his sniffling had calmed. He rested his head against Erik’s chest, lulled by the steady promise of the beat of Erik’s heart.

  


“It will, Sam. If you keep working, it will go away.”

  


“I don’t believe you though,” Sam confessed, desperately begging Erik to understand how truly impossible it was to believe—and Erik did understand. Hopelessness possessed the unique ability to always become a stable truth. The worst can always be willed to happen. If Sam wanted his fears to become reality, then they could easily become so. He could allow his eating disorder to become a steady presence of unwavering predictability and certainty. He could cling to a pain that never left and know that his reality would not be subject to change. If that was what he wanted his fate to be, then it could easily be so. He would never have to be subject to the fear of change again.

  


Or, he could accept the risk of hope. He could risk disappointment and failure and potentially discover a hideous truth of personal incompetence. He could not fail at what he did not try. The only problem was that Sam had already begun trying, and thus in either direction, he was destined to fail at something. Erik did not underestimate the magnitude of the fear that accompanied that, but he believed in Sam’s ability to endure it. If Sam had ever proven anything, it was his ability to endure. 

  


“You don’t have to believe me for it to be true, Sammy. Someday, you will know,” Erik promised. He would see him there. He would walk that path with him. 

  


Sam breathed deep. He picked up his fork. He chewed. He swallowed, and it tasted like mouthfuls of dried blood. He ached. But he tried again. And Erik did it with him.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really like this piece. There's a lot of awkward wording, and I felt emotionally stunted while writing it. Maybe it's just not possible to tear out the ugliest parts or yourself and like them. I've just been very lonely lately, and I wish that I had someone to comfort me like Sam and EJ. I know everyone in recovery knows that this is unrealistic, that in reality, when you're recovering, you're forced to be both of them at the same time, to talk yourself down and accept the pain alone. But I thought this would be therapeutic to write, like some kind of imaginary comfort. It wasn't. I feel gross and immoral.
> 
> Maybe upcoming: Tyson Barrie and EJ discussing the role of self-expression in maintaining recovery & recovering Cale or Josty with someone (maybe fully-recovered, mentor Tyson?) discussing the death of the disordered self.
> 
> this fic's anthem was Bold with Fire by AJJ.


End file.
